ON A FEBRUARY night in 1988, projectionist Alun Rees turned off the house lights of the Rex cinema in Berkhamsted, loaded a print of schlockfest Death Race 2000 back into its canister, and locked up the projection room for the last time. His workplace for over a decade, the Rex became that day one more casualty of dwindling UK cinemas, and the inexorable rise of the multiplex.

Although English Heritage were swift to award the building, a regal Art Deco confection, a Grade II listing for both its interior — converted during the 1970s into two poky screening rooms and a bingo hall — and its shell, the imposing white structure on the town’s main street spent the next 12 years falling deeper into disrepair.

There was a council-backed committee, of course, but years of meetings brought no more significant decisions than who got storage space. More aggressive commercial interests, proposing everything from a conference centre to offices to luxury apartments, generally were shipwrecked on the conditions of the listing, which required full restoration of the cinema space.

Fortunes changed for the Rex with the involvement of a local man, James Hannaway, whose service at a community arts centre in nearby Hemel Hempstead had left him deeply wary of councils and the committee process. Shunning obvious funding routes such as the lottery, Hannaway sought a business solution.

“What motivated me was the sense that, with the listing, this one was winnable,” he said. “I won’t let the bastards have it; it can be run again as an independent entity. It was sheer, bloody-minded hatred of the faceless world of commerce, if you like.”

His next move, then, was something of a surprise. Dangling a fictional £1 million bid for the cinema space, Hannaway drew Nicholas King Homes, who had made two unsuccessful bids to redevelop the building as luxury homes, into a joint proposal which would allow them their homes, while preserving the cinema and returning its auditorium to its original purpose.

As he had heard from a friend who had just left the council that the authority were looking into delisting the site, the pressure was really on.

“The anti-multiplex thing was a big factor,” he says. “I wanted it nongeneric, totally autonomous, fiercely independent of everything, with that old fashioned word-is-my-bond thing. I wanted to prove to myself that with no group, no committee, no democracy, this would make enough money to keep going and pay everyone, I wanted to prove we could do it.

“I wanted to prove to myself that you can run such a thing.”

The company put a new roof on the place, restored drainage, electrical and water access, repairing the fabric of the building and restoring the heavy original plasterwork. Meanwhile, Hannaway took his project to the people.

Over the years a team came together. Hundreds showed support, with one man even buying the Rex a lottery ticket each week, while a core of 20 or 30 donated sweat and toil to the site itself.

Hannaway kept the community in touch with their comeback venue and also put on a few special events to showcase the progress they had made, and reassure them. The response was amazing.

Progress was agonisingly slow, including sourcing the cinema’s 294 super deluxe seats in Amsterdam.